Baltic
Dry Index. 2653 -0.17 Brent Crude 77.93
Spot Gold 4316 Spot Silver 69.71
US 2 Year Yield 4.20 +0.15
US Federal Debt. 39.265 trillion
US GDP 32.223 trillion.
“As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan
As expected, Trump’s new Chairman of the Fed and the gang, left interest rates unchanged.
US stock casinos sold off. For much of the last few months the stock casinos were betting on an interest rate cut.
US Treasury yields rose. Crude oil slipped, but for other reasons.
Today, it’s the turn of the Old Lady of Threadneedle
Street, the BoE to play with UK interest rates.
Stock futures rise as Fed hints at possible rate
hike in 2026; Nikkei hits 71,000 for the first time: Live updates
Updated Thu, Jun 18 2026 9:39 PM EDT
U.S. stock futures ticked higher on
Wednesday night after the Federal Reserve indicated the possibility
of a rate hike this year.
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed
0.2% and 0.4%, respectively. Futures
tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 73 points, or
slightly more than 0.1%.
Asia-Pacific markets opened mixed, with
South Korea’s Kospi and Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumping to fresh records.
The Kospi rose 0.89%. Index
heavyweight SK Hynix advanced 3.45% to notch a fresh high, while Samsung
Electronics rose 1.23%. The small-cap Kosdaq declined 0.5%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded 1.79%
higher to rise above 71,000 for the first time, while the Topix was up 1.48%.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX
200 slid 0.29%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down
0.76%, while the mainland’s CSI 300 was flat.
Wednesday marked the first meeting of the
Federal Reserve with Kevin Warsh at the helm of the U.S. central bank. At the
conclusion of the meeting, the Fed kept the benchmark federal funds rate
unchanged and anchored in a range of between 3.5% and 3.75%.
Policymakers’ “dot plot” revealed that
several Fed officials now see interest rates increasing in 2026. The median
estimate for the year-end interest rate now stands at 3.8%, up from 3.4% in
prior projections from March, suggesting that at least one rate hike could be
in the picture in 2026.
Complicating the forecast was
Warsh’s decision
to abstain from submitting a rate forecast.
Following the meeting, stocks fell across
the board. The Dow, which
had hit a new all-time intraday high earlier in the day, ultimately declined
507.12 points, or 0.98%. The S&P
500 fell 1.21%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.34%.
On the other hand, bond yields jumped.
The two-year Treasury yield
hit a high of 4.22%.
“The Fed held rates steady but spoiled the
mood with a much more hawkish dot plot. Elevated inflation makes that
understandable, but the committee is far from united, with only about half
still penciling in rate hikes later this year,” said Sonu Varghese, chief macro
strategist at Carson Group. “The bigger point is that policy still looks loose
for an economy where inflation remains a problem and the labor market is
stabilizing.”
“The market doesn’t like regime change,”
added David Zervos, chief market strategist at Jefferies, on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime”
on Wednesday afternoon.
Accenture and Kroger will report earnings
before Thursday’s opening bell. Traders will also watch out for May’s leading
indicators and June’s Philadelphia Fed Index reading, alongside initial jobless
claims from the week ended June 13.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Warsh experiences worst ‘Fed day’ S&P 500
performance for a new chair since 1994
Published Wed, Jun 17 2026 4:14 PM EDT Updated
Wed, Jun 17 2026 4:30 PM EDT
If the stock market is a report card,
Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh isn’t coming out of his first policy
meeting with high marks.
The S&P 500 tumbled 1.2% in
Wednesday’s session, with losses
steepening during and after Warsh’s inaugural press conference as
chairman.
That marks the worst performance for the
broad index on the first “Fed day” under a new chair since 1994, according to
Bespoke Investment Group.
To be sure, there have been only three
other new Fed leaders named in that timespan: Ben Bernanke, Jerome Powell and
Janet Yellen. While those chairs’ first Fed meeting days saw the S&P 500
close lower, none were of the magnitude seen on Wednesday.
Bespoke’s figures go back to 1994 because
prior to that year, the central bank did not formally announce its rate target.
Greenspan ushered in that practice as chair.
Some investors saw Warsh’s focus on
delivering stable price growth as a sign that future interest rate cuts may not
be as likely as previously anticipated. The Fed held
interest rates steady as the market widely expected on Wednesday —
despite the clear push for cuts from President Donald Trump, who nominated
Warsh.
“He is absolutely telling you that he
plans on delivering on price stability,” DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey
Gundlach said on
CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “That means... we’re not going to have such easy money
policy as everybody thought maybe Chairman Warsh would do back in the first
quarter of this year, when everyone was counting on rate cuts.”
In fact, traders are increasingly
expecting the opposite scenario after several Fed officials signaled
a possible rate hike this year. Fed funds futures indicate the central
bank could raise rates as soon as October now.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell
500 points on Wednesday, giving up a gain on the day from before the Fed
decision.
Warsh’s Wednesday debut also offered a
clear glimpse into how the “regime
change” he’s promised for the central bank will look. He significantly
pared down the closely followed Fed meeting statement and announced
task forces focused on overhauling the central bank’s operations.
“Investors will ultimately need to stay
tuned to see what the task forces deliver, but one thing is clear now,” said
Josh Jamner, senior investment strategy analyst at ClearBridge Investments. “A
new chapter at the Fed has begun.”
Warsh
experiences worst 'Fed day' S&P 500 performance for a new chair since 1994
Warsh’s ‘Price Stability’ Nod Has Street Seeing a
Hike
June 17, 2026 at 10:47 PM GMT+1
“Price stability.” Those words
were among the first public remarks of the new Fed chair as the central bank
predictably did nothing to interest rates on Wednesday. Fed policymakers were
nevertheless split over whether they expect to raise them this year. Their new
projections indicate nine officials foresee at least one hike, with six
anticipating at least two. Another nine expected no move or a cut. Warsh,
recently selected by President Donald Trump to replace Jerome Powell as
chair, declined to submit
a forecast.
Wall Street traders read the tea leaves
and decided to sell. The S&P 500 fell 1.2% as the yield on
two-year Treasuries climbed 16 basis points to 4.21%.
The dollar advanced. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella
Fed’s Warsh Nods
to ‘Price Stability’: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
Here are the five big takeaways from Kevin Warsh’s
first meeting as Fed chairman
Published Wed, Jun 17 2026 4:42 PM EDT
The Federal Reserve and Chairman Kevin
Warsh on Wednesday followed the script on interest rates closely, voting
to keep the benchmark level steady, but dropped several surprises that kept
markets guessing about where things are heading. Markets didn’t like it,
with major
averages swooning after the meeting and as Warsh spoke in his news
conference.
Here are the five biggest takeaways:
- No
rate changes, but the hawks are circling: There were no apparent
dissents to keep the federal funds rate targeted between 3.5%-3.75%.
However, the “dot
plot” of expectations further out showed an inclination towards a
hike later this year. The Federal Open Market Committee split 9-9 between
those expecting steady rates or one cut and those seeing at least one
hike, with the median “dot” pointing to a quarter percentage point
increase.
- The
dot mystery solved: There was rampant
speculation heading into the meeting that Warsh wouldn’t be
submitting a dot, and he confirmed that he did not. In the past, the
chairman has expressed a disdain for all such “forward guidance” as
hamstringing future policy. “It’s been the practice of this committee for
participants to submit these projections, and I have encouraged my
colleagues to continue to do so. I, however, have refrained from offering
any projections of my own consistent with my long-held views on the SEP,
at least as currently structured,” he said.
- Regime
change via task force: Warsh has been promising to shake things up at
the Fed, and his first steps in doing so came through the announced
formation of five task forces. They are charged with studying
communication, the Fed’s balance sheet, the data sources on which it
relies, productivity and jobs, the impact of artificial intelligence and
other transformative technologies, and the central bank’s inflation
approach.
- Tough
on inflation: On about a dozen occasions, Warsh used the term
“price stability.” For a chairman who had opined often about cutting
rates, it was surprisingly hawkish talk about his and the committee’s
“unambiguous and unanimous” resolve to get inflation under control.
Markets responded in kind, with the policy-sensitive 2-year Treasury yield soaring
by 14.4 basis points.
- Brevity
is the soul of wit, and monetary policy: Warsh also promised to
revamp communications, and the first visible step was a dramatically
abridged post-meeting statement. Prior to the new chairman’s arrival, the
statements generally ran in excess of 300 words, consisting of boiler
plate language that investors parsed through closely. This time: The
statement ran just 130 words, short and sweet with little ambiguity.
More
Here are the five big takeaways from Kevin Warsh's first meeting as Fed chairman
In oil news.
From supply shock to oil glut: IEA flags scale of
demand destruction caused by Iran war
Published Wed, Jun 17 2026 4:39 AM EDT
The oil supply shock caused by the Iran
war has eroded global demand for crude — but a lasting resolution to the
conflict could drive a surge in supply volumes and trigger a major oil overhang
next year, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.
In its latest monthly oil market report,
the IEA slashed its 2026 demand outlook to 1.1 million barrels a day
year-over-year in 2026. That’s a 700,000-barrel-per-day downgrade from last
month’s estimate, after deliveries plunged by 5 million barrels per day in the
second quarter, the IEA said.
Global supply, meanwhile, slumped to 94.5
million barrels a day in May, down 600,000 barrels a day month-on-month. That
dragged output to 13.6 mb/d, well below pre-war levels.
The IEA said global supply is now expected
to drop by 3.9 mb/d year-on-year in 2026 to 102.4 mb/d, before rebounding
strongly to 110.3 mb/d next year.
The drop in demand reflects the combined
pressure of elevated fuel prices and shortages of refined products, the agency
noted, underscoring how the conflict has moved beyond a straightforward supply
shock.
‘Significant overhang’
However, the IEA said supply is expected
to surge by around 8 million barrels per day to roughly 110 mb/d, heavily
outweighing a modest recovery in global oil demand of 2 million barrels per day
to 105.3 million barrels per day in 2027.
“Our first look at 2027 balances shows a
significant overhang emerging next year,” the IEA said.
The report comes as investors weigh how
the agreement between the U.S. and Iran to end the Middle East conflict, and a
potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, will impact energy markets.
----“If the deal holds, exports and
production from the Gulf should see a gradual recovery — not least because
Iranian oil exports can fully resume once the U.S. blockade is lifted,” the IEA
wrote.
Supply normalization could take months
The report’s authors noted how shipments
through the Strait rebounded sharply earlier this month, supported by
ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, which have helped boost total flows
from a May low of 9.6 mb/d to around 12 mb/d.
More
Oil glut may
follow Iran war, says IEA, amid demand destruction
In other news, spook world at work for you
themselves?
As the G-7 exit Evian, a reminder of an
earlier disgraceful conference that left Europe’s Jews to be murdered by Hitler.
A $40 Million Gold Heist Risks Exposing CIA’s
Top-Secret Spy Programs
Veterans of the agency worry the case will
compromise legitimate, highly classified operations against American
adversaries
June 16, 2026 11:45 am ET
Five decades ago, four burglars broke into
a billionaire’s safe, setting off a chain of events that exposed and foiled one
of the CIA’s most ambitious operations against the Soviets.
Now, Central Intelligence Agency veterans
are worried that another seemingly brazen heist—this time allegedly committed
by a CIA official—could expose another top-secret program, after authorities
say the official walked out of his office with $40 million in gold bars.
The CIA’s David Rush, arrested
in May on
charges of theft of public money, was a senior supervisor in the agency’s
science and technology division. That unit designs the spycraft tools agents
use to intercept conversations, procure clandestine photographs and
communicate. Rush hasn’t been indicted or publicly responded to the charges in
court.
He operated a highly classified
intelligence program approved by Congress several years ago to use large
quantities of cash to obtain critical information about American adversaries,
according to people familiar with the matter, and held a rank that is the CIA’s
equivalent of an army general.
The case has shone a spotlight on the way
the agency conducts its business, and some former CIA officials said details of
the legitimate clandestine operations he ran would inevitably surface. The case
echoes the circumstances surrounding a 1974 case of a robbery at eccentric
aerospace businessman Howard Hughes’ office, which ended up revealing
a CIA effort to recover a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine.
“You could start to see things exposed
that shouldn’t be discussed, things that are real and truly sensitive,”
said Mark Fowler, a former senior CIA officer who ran spying operations
against Iran.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation began
looking into Rush, authorities said, after the CIA referred allegations that he
had filed false time cards. He had allegedly requested pay for time as a
deployed Navy reservist, when in reality he had left the military a decade
earlier, authorities said.
Investigators later discovered that,
separate from the real national security project Rush was operating, he appears
to have created a fake classified program, known as a special access program,
people familiar with the matter said. The fake program was supposedly related
to the continuity of government operations, the people said, which generally
allow Washington to continue functioning in case of a catastrophic emergency.
Rush allegedly conducted a fake briefing
with two co-workers on the supposed program, which he claimed was run jointly
with the Pentagon. He convinced one of them that it required tens of millions
of dollars in funding through a contract; that money was then transferred to a
military contractor who provided the bars, the people said.
Investigators learned that the gold he had
fraudulently obtained through the fake program was no longer in secure storage,
the people said. In May, an FBI search of Rush’s Virginia home uncovered more
than 600
pounds of gold bars together
with more than $2 million in cash and dozens of Rolexes and other luxury
watches.
The exquisite security precautions of such
special access programs, also known as black programs, helped enable the scam,
the people said. Since the two who were read-on to the program weren’t
permitted to discuss it with other employees or supervisors, Rush appeared to
have been able to move more than 300 two-pound gold bars to his home before
anyone noticed.
More
A $40 Million Gold
Heist Risks Exposing CIA’s Top-Secret Spy Programs - WSJ
Évian Conference
The Évian Conference was
convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of
German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to
flee persecution by Nazi Germany. It was the
initiative of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt who perhaps
hoped to obtain commitments from some of the invited nations to accept more
refugees, although he took pains to avoid stating that objective expressly.
Historians have suggested that Roosevelt desired to deflect attention and
criticism from American policy that severely limited the quota of refugees
admitted to the United States.[1]
The conference was attended by
representatives from 32 countries, and 24 voluntary organizations also attended
as observers, presenting plans either orally or in writing.[2] Golda Meir, the attendee
from British
Mandatory Palestine,
was not permitted to speak or to participate in the proceedings except as an
observer. Some 200 international journalists gathered at Évian to observe and
report on the meeting. The Soviet Union refused to
take part in the conference, though direct talks on resettlement of Jews and
Slavs between German and Soviet governments proceeded at the time of the
conference and after it. In the end, the Soviet Union refused to accept
refugees and a year later ordered its border guards to treat all refugees
attempting to cross into Soviet territory as spies.[3]
The conference was ultimately doomed, as
aside from the Dominican
Republic and
later Costa
Rica,
delegations from the 32 participating nations failed to come to any agreement
about accepting Jewish refugees fleeing the Third Reich. The conference thus
inadvertently proved to be a useful tool for Nazi propaganda.[4] Adolf Hitler responded to
the news of the conference by saying that if other nations agreed to take the
Jews, he would help them leave.[5]
More
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians.
UK
inflation unexpectedly stays at 2.8% with higher transport costs offset by
slower food price rises – business live
17
June 2026
Food
prices rose at the slowest rate since December 2024 with declines in inflation
for meat, cheese, vegetables and cheese.
Economists
predict UK inflation peak below 4%
Economists
reckon UK inflation will peak below 4% in the coming months.
James
Smith,
developed markets economist at ING, expects a return to interest rate cuts next
year.
“What’s
striking about these latest figures is just how benign food inflation is right
now,” he said.
It’s
a key reason why headline CPI unexpectedly stayed at 2.8%, despite upward
pressure from air fares and a quirk related to road tax. Food prices fell in
May relative to April, a trend we’ve also seen in the eurozone and Eastern
Europe. If anything, the latest producer price data suggests food inflation
will continue to fall sharply over the next couple of months. That will
gradually change, but it’s a reminder that the energy price spike is unlikely
to reach its peak impact on food inflation until the first quarter of next
year.
In
general, it’s too early to see much impact from the Middle East crisis beyond
fuel prices. Services inflation is bouncing around, partly due to the timing of
Easter this year, but the Bank of England’s preferred gauge of “core services”
– which excludes volatile and indexed categories – has been more stable just
below 4%. The BoE’s own “Decision Maker Panel” of CFOs points to services
inflation staying around current levels through the summer.
We’re
still sceptical that the Middle East crisis will generate the widespread
“second round” effects that policymakers fear. Evidence from twelve months ago,
when a National Insurance (payroll tax) and minimum wage hike failed to do much
to the inflation picture, suggests corporate pricing power is considerably
weaker than it was during the last energy shock four years ago.
More
The
world economy will never be the same
Few
corners of the world economy have been left untouched by the past four months
of war.
June
17, 2026
When
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, Middle East energy exports dried up
practically overnight. Oil and gas prices exploded. Inflation surged.
The
economic fallout has taken the form of energy rations in Asia, fertilizer
shortages in Africa and grounded planes in Europe. It has affected politics,
too. President Trump is not the only leader whose ratings have fallen as voters
despair about the cost of living.
The
huge toll of this war is one of the main reasons Trump has been so eager to end
it. It’s also one reason to think the current deal could lead to long-term
peace: Many are desperate for this to be over.
But
bringing a global economy back online after it has been operating at reduced
speed for months is not going to be easy — or fast. As my colleague
Patricia Cohen writes, expect the economy to be “kicked onto a path of
lower growth and higher prices” for some time to come.
Trust
and logistics
When
the preliminary agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and lift the U.S.
blockade was announced, the relief in markets was immediate. Oil prices fell to
their lowest levels since early March.
But
as my colleague Rebecca Elliott
writes,
getting substantial amounts of oil and gas actually flowing again will take a
lot longer.
In
the best of times, it can take weeks or
months to
get oil and gas from wells in the Middle East to buyers in China or Japan, and
these are far from the best of times.
The strait is not yet open. There are concerns that it
could be mined. When it does open, the first step will be getting out the
hundreds of stranded vessels. That process alone could take weeks, U.S. officials say.
The next step — firing up oil wells, refineries and
other infrastructure that have been idle for months — is another difficult
task. Fixing any infrastructure that was damaged in the war will take even more
time, and money.
For any of this to happen, energy producers in the Gulf
need to trust that the U.S.-Iranian deal will last. The best-case scenario for
finding a new equilibrium, Wael Sawan, the chief executive of Shell, told
Rebecca, is six to 12 months.
But restarting energy shipping isn’t just about getting
trapped ships out through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s also about persuading
shipping companies to come back in — and shipping executives
are perhaps even more uneasy than energy executives. One told my colleague
Jenny Gross it would take weeks or even months for him to feel comfortable
sending ships into the Persian Gulf again.
A new global economy
If the U.S. and Iran eventually reach an agreement that
enough parties have faith in, there’s a good chance that energy infrastructure
in the Middle East will eventually be rebuilt and that shipping will eventually
rebound.
But the war has altered the global economic order in
ways that already look permanent, or at least enduring.
The cost of shipping may have permanently gone up. Iran
wants to impose fees on ships that pass through the
Strait of Hormuz, Patricia wrote. And the fact that it has demonstrated its
power to disrupt shipping raises insurance costs.
The energy shock of the past four months is also
“supercharging the hunt for alternatives” to Middle East oil and gas, as
Patricia put it. A push toward renewables looks likely to benefit China, the
world leader in producing wind turbines, batteries and solar panels. Russia,
the second-largest producer of crude oil and gas after the U.S., has gotten a
boost. And countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Guyana are
all ramping up their oil production capacities.
The Gulf, a wealthy region that includes major global
trade and financial hubs, may never be the same. Attacks on five-star hotels
and airports have shaken its image as a beacon of stability in a volatile
region.
More
The World: A long
road to recovery
Japan May exports grow at fastest pace in over three years, beating
estimates, as chip demand soars
Published Tue, Jun 16 2026 7:57 PM EDT
Japan’s exports in May grew at their fastest pace
since November 2022, rising 17% year on year, driven by robust demand for cars
and semiconductors.
Growth was higher than the 16.2% expected by
economists polled by Reuters, and up from the 14.8% in April.
While export value rose, volumes barely shifted,
recording just a 0.5% increase, signaling that much of the gains in value were
likely due to price and foreign exchange-related impact as the yen stays weak.
The surge in exports was powered by a 17.9%
year-on-year jump in shipments to China and a 12.5% surge in exports to the
U.S. Beijing is Tokyo’s largest trading partner, while Washington is its
second-largest.
Exports to the Middle East took a hit due to the
U.S.-Iran war, falling 32%.
The country’s exports of semiconductors surged
61.2% in May from a year earlier in terms of value, powered by booming demand
for artificial intelligence technology, while shipments of cars jumped 16.4%,
according to the official data.
Exports remain one of Japan’s main
economic drivers, with its economy growing 0.5% sequentially in the
first quarter and at 1.8% on an annualized basis. However, this growth engine
may soon slow, according to Norihiro Yamaguchi, lead Japan economist at Oxford
Economics.
Yamaguchi expects gains to ease gradually, saying that while robust
tech-related demand amid the AI boom will be supportive in the near term,
sluggish global growth overall will limit broader demand for Japanese goods,
particularly non-AI capital goods.
Japan’s imports rose 12.5% year on year in May, the
highest growth since January 2025, but missing Reuters poll estimates of 12.8%.
Petroleum imports dropped 28.5% year on year, hit by the Middle East conflict.
The economic data comes after the Bank of Japan
raised its policy rate on Tuesday by 25 basis points to the highest in
over 30 years at 1%, as the country sees rising inflation
and as the yen stays weak.
A weak yen is likely to boost exports but also
causes domestic worries by pushing up imported inflation and weakening
purchasing power.
----The Reuters Tankan survey — which measures
business sentiment among large Japanese manufacturers and is closely watched by
the central bank — climbed to +13 in June, the highest in three months, from +8
in May. The non-manufacturing index rose to +32. A positive figure indicates
that optimists outnumber pessimists.
Japan May
exports grow at fastest pace in over three years, beating estimates
Technology
Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this
section Updates as they get reported.
Phone sets on fire and 'scorches cabin' on BA flight from Heathrow
16 June 2026
A mobile phone caught fire and “scorched
the cabin” aboard a British Airways flight bound for Las Vegas, according to
authorities.
Flight 271 from London landed at Harry
Reid International Airport in Las Vegas at around 2.30pm local time on Monday
after a crew member reported a mobile phone fire on board.
In audio obtained by CBS the pilot can
be heard saying over the speakers that the inside of the cabin was scorched,
but that sparks were under control.
No injuries were reported.
It is unclear how the fire started and
what model the phone was.
A spokesperson for British Airways said
that the flight “landed safely and customers disembarked normally.”
“The safety of our customers and crew is
the highest priority,” they added.
An investigation has now been opened by
the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to the FAA, incidents of
electronic gadgets emitting smoke, catching fire, or generating extreme heat on
flights have reached historically high levels, driven by the sheer volume of
lithium-ion batteries carried by passengers.
The FAA verified 93 air incidents in
2025, up from the previous record of 89 incidents in 2024.
Since tracking began in 2006, the FAA
has verified more than 670 individual events involving lithium batteries in
cabins or cargo holds.
Phone sets on fire and 'scorches cabin' on BA flight from Heathrow
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the
problem is that government spends too much.”
Ronald Reagan
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